Post
by drapadew » Fri Nov 10, 2006 11:20 pm
So Margaret are you ready to walk some more through the old Blantyre Streets
As we go along the Glasgow Road(Main Street)from Church Street,the first store on this block was a millinery Store which sold all kinds of cotton,needles,and lace for the local gentry,I personally can never remember going into this store,just a wee look through the window every so often to see what was going on.
The next store was a greengrocers, that store I went into a lot of times, it was where we as a family bought all of our vegetables over the winter period my dad had a garden at the back of our Council House and he tried to grow everything that could be grown during the summer months,a fair amount of which was pickled for the winter.We did not know what refrigeration was in those days.The only refrigerator I ever saw in Blantyre had a few cows sheep and pigs hanging up in it .Will talk on that subject later.
The next large door on the block was the entrance to the Masonic Lodge or Masonic hall as we called it,big double door with brass fittings, quite impressive as opposed to the other doors around,I must have tried to open that door at least a dozen times being the nosy kid that I was,it never did budge for me,I guess that’s why I went back trying to see if it was open. Among us kids it was well known to stay clear or some big guy would come out and smack your ear.I was lucky,in Blantyre that was allowed in those days.If you misbehaved or gave cheek back to your elders,it was accepted that they had the right at that given time to reprimand you with a good slap up the earhole,and if you went home and told your dad what happened he in turn gave you another slap up the earhole. This kind of control was accepted by most miner families, very little was missed and the whole story if it was worth telling, was talked about at the pit head and the father always knew if the kid deserved it or not. So as kids we just used to do the wrong things with the thought in the back of our minds,if we get caught we were going to be punished, so we had better take what ever comes and say nothing at home.But of course this some times backfired on you and you think you had got away with it until all of a sudden WHACK!! I heard what you were up to yesterday WHACK!!.
It was'nt me dad it was Jimmy so and so,you always tried to pass the blame on to some one else,it seemed to ease the pain of the whack a little knowing that someone else was going to get there comeuppance
One of the Grand Masters of this Lodge was called. Col John Clark Forrest.
The three streets we have talked about were named after him John Street, Clark Street, and Forrest Street.His home or Property was called Auchinraith as in Auchinraith Road which we again have referred to. The street where I lived called Logan Street was named after his wife Janet Logan.He must have had a great influence in the village matters to have all these streets named after him and his property.
He was also the provost of Hamilton 1875-81.
For anyone interested in this family,there is a gravestone in the High Blantyre Auld Kirk and Graveyard dedicated to this family.
The next store was Craigs the Butchers,where the cows sheep and pigs were strung up in the store,with some in the refrigerator,but most of the time they just hung up in the store.Bob Craig was lucky that he was not far from the local slaughter house and could get his fresh meat very quickly.We did not shop there too often, as we always made a point of shopping and supporting our local co-op on most items for the home.
In those days there was everything shown in the windows of the Butcher stores, most of which was already all cut up and ready to be weighed with those big brass scales, they were like chessmen,10lbs,5lbs,2lbs,1lbs 1/2lbs 1/4lbs 2ozs, 1oz.They were used to balance the scale against the weight of the item you were purchasing.It was not uncommon for a shady shopkeeper to have his finger pressing down on the scale,so as to give a false reading on the amount you were receiving,this of course was only done to a stranger,they knew better than to cheat one of the miners wives.
This time period I am talking about would be around 1936-39
Before that very few miners had the means to shop outside the Company Store and meat was a bit of a luxury in those days.Mince,tatties,and turnips was considered a very, very good meal.
In our home through these years we always seemed to have a pot of soup on the go,mostly with plenty of barley and vegetables of all kinds,and with a bone which you had bought from the butchers when you purchased your mince meat.
You have to bear in mind that this was a stable miners meal,and everyone was looking for a bone for their soup,so this item A MEAT BONE was considered an item that each and every household would ask for and the butcher would only supply to you if you were buying some sort of meat with your purchase,that’s if he had one.So the the first thing that would be asked for when you went into the store was do you have a bone I can buy with my purchase of meat etc.If the answer was no,you moved on to the next butcher,if he didn’t have one then you were out of luck,and probably finished up buying the cheapest of meat to throw into the soup as a filler and flavor enhancer
The meat bone plus what ever residue of meat left on the bone and the marrow within the bone were all considered food and an enhancer to the taste of the soup.
Of course the butcher would have his favorite customers and would always keep the bones for them.I can recall that there were many occasions when one of us kids in the family was sent out to find a bone at the butchers. some times you got lucky and found one at no cost or they charged you a penny or two
What a life, we are talking about a bone with a little bit of meat on it,even the dogs of today are better fed with their nutritionally package dog food than we were in those days.
One good thing about living and surviving in those times,was that you would yery rarely see an obese person like that which is fairly prevalent today.
The next store was a Jewelers ,I suppose there had to be someone in Blantyre who could afford a trinket or two.I knew nothing about this store,so we will move on.
The next establishment was the Scottish Clydesdale Bank,again I knew very little about this establishment.( I did hear a mention from the village idiot ,that Clydesdale horses were keep here)
The next was the Priory Bar which I really did know a lot about.
It was situated on the corner of the Glasgow Road and my stomping grounds Logan Street which we the family had moved to in 1932.We had left the Honeymoon Miners Raws and moved to our new Council House in Logan Street and what a change that was with a inside bathroom and hot running water and a gas stove to keep our soup warm.Life was at the least a 100% better.
The priory bar was a fairly large bar compared to the other pubs in Blantyre and it was central so it was very well patronized by the miners and they did sell a very good McEwans pint, as I said before the pubs at that time sold what ever kind of beer that the owner thought was a good seller not like today where the companies mostly own the pubs and they have to sell the company's beer
The priory bar most likely took its name from the Priory Monastery 1240 which was built directly across the river Clyde from the Bothwell Castle,I will touch on both of these buildings in a later street description as they lie further west in Blantyre.
The pub had a main bar room with a large nearly round type bar with tables around to sit down on,which was fairly unique in Blantyre,in most pubs you stood at the bar as close as the crowd would let you and drank your pint.I went home to Blantyre in the year 2003 and there was this particular pub where they were still crowding around the bar 6 deep,you had to call out your order and the pints were passed over to you by the crowd, this was the usual pattern of service and I believe it must be still going on today as I write this
The floor like the butchers shop was covered in sawdust to catch all the dribblings and spittle's of beer, there was a lot of smoking going on so the place was always reeking of smoke and butt-ends every where with the occasional spittoon scattered around,hence the use of the sawdust,they just sweep up every night and in doing so collected all of this garbage.
They also had a private room which was held in reserve for large family parties or business gents with deals to discuss
An other smaller room was for the ladies,where all the old local grannys and others could go in and have a wee drap.This room was very private and had a sliding window which opened directly on to the bar,allowing only the bartender to see who was ordering the drink.Everything was hush-hush about this room and about the people who used it.
There was also another Sliding door where you could go and order out a few bottles of beer (The original carrie-oot)and have your tin pail filled up with draft beer,This was sold by the pint and was a little cheaper than buying it at the bar.The miner liked that drop of beer to sup as he was washing himself in the big tin tub in front of the fire on a Friday you would see a lot of kids making for the carry -out with a jug or container in their hands,no one ever questioned a childs age or why they were in the pub,it was always taken for granted that he was there for his dads beer, and he dare never try having a sup himself ,it was to easy too smell if he ever tried it. Drinking age for us boys was right after we left school 14years old, the official drinking age was 16 but we could always get our beer.The miners would always get you a carry-out if you asked them nicely, they were the same when they were young so they mostly felt obliged to do so .I was 14 during the war years so rules by this time had become rather relaxed, if you had the money you could more or less buy anything,The black market on everything was really flourishing.
I feel very lucky that I am still here to recall all the good times I had with my mates in the pubs and put that down to the rotten life that I lived,remember only the good die young so I had to have been one of the badjin's.
Logan Street consisted mostly of council houses 4 to a block,2 up and 2 down. Most of the homes that I know of had 2 bedrooms. There were also larger homes for the larger families. A large bedroom, smaller bedroom, living room with fireplace,scullery with double sink and gas stove, bathroom , with all of the rooms directly of the hallway.( Total sq ft of our home 640sq.ft,according to Blantyre area housing office)The downstairs home had a small room which was for storing coal in but very few people used it for this purpose,they usually converted it into a storage or coat room or a combination of both.the coal was then stored outside under the stairs leading up to the home on the second floor.This was a big, big house to us when you consider what we had just come from.The size of a single -end miners raw house had been about 225sq ft in total,these homes were nearly three times the size of the Raws.
The Council Houses to-day in Logan Street are mostly privately owned and when you consider their size when compared to the size of the average house build to-day they were at that time a fairly large attached house.Statistics show that the size of new houses built in the British isles is 30% smaller than those built back in the 1930.To-day the average size of a home in the U.K. is around 815 sq.ft Although we did not know it, we were getting a very good deal then.
We had a territorial drill hall for the Scottish Cameronians Rifles Regiment in Logan Street where a lot of soldering went on and never more so as on the 3 September 1939 when war was declared, you could not move up or down the street because of the amount of bodies,all trying to enroll in the army, they were shipping them out by the truck loads,where to, I never did find out.
They were all so keen to go.
Next to the drill hall was the place I mentioned called St John's wood,This was an area of about 3acres of trees and ran between Church Street and Logan Street,it was in here we held one of the greatest parties every held in Blantyre,that was VE NIGHT.
VICTORY IN EUROPE May 8th 1945.What a party that was, the atmosphere was to say the least electrified everyone was everyone's best friend and nothing you said or did was out of place, I know that night there was a feeling in the air that life could not get any better than what you felt that night,sure there was a fair amount of alcohol about but that was not what gave most of us this feeling of euphoria,It was great to see a friend and look him in the eye knowing that you both now had a chance to do things in the future without that cloud hanging over your head,the threat of instant death and the dread of a call up into the army were both wiped away and you could plan for the future.I was only a youth of 15 and yet I felt that awareness to my future,a relief I only ever experienced that once,but having know it can still be recalled today to write about.It is and will remain one of the prized memories of my life. I do hope that my friends and neighbors have the same satisfaction in their recall. IT WAS A GREAT NIGHT!!
I had a call from my old buddy John who lives up in Canada and we were talking about V E Night,he told me the tale of the V E Night celebrations they had up in High Blantyre where John came from.John would be about 13years old.
That day May 8th1945 everyone was throwing out on the curb all their old furniture and anything that was burnable for the kids to pick up for the big bonfire which was being prepared for that night at High Blantyre Cross,if it could burn and was not tied down to something,it was put on the fire.John and a couple of his wee pals happened to see a lot of kids moving a pile of wood and decided to give them a hand,Little did they know or care that this wood was a private stock from a lumber yard OR SO THE STORY GOES.Everythink was going well up until the police arrived on the scene and low and behold only John and his three mates were caught in the act.The Police loaded up the wood they were supposed to have been taking to the bonfire in a small van that they had arrived in. This was to be used as evidence.The four of them were charged with stealing the wood and had to appear at the Hamilton Court,When they did appear at the Court they were fined 5 Shillings each and were surprised to hear that that the amount of wood they were supposed to have stolen was 9 tons,and if that was true can you imagine the size of that bonfire 9 tons of wood plus all of the other stuff that had been thrown out. That had to have been some BIG!BIG! FIRE.
John did say that this was his great memory of V E Night and one he is very proud of.
At the corner of St John"s woods,there was a small hut with some seats and a stove in it that various clubs from around Blantyre used as a meeting hall.
Next to the small hall was the local Doocet as we called it. This was a Racing Pigeon hall, this was upstairs above a part of the Priory Bar Properties.Just past the big green doors through which the beer was delivered.
Pigeon racing was a big part of the miners lives in the later years 1930-1960,for those that could afford it and had not drunk their money away. The miners and others kept their pigeons at home in their own Doocet but at the week-ends they were brought to the Doocet to have them tagged for racing.This was done by a placing a round tag on one of the legs with a specific number which had been allocated to this owner. The Pigeons were usually loaded on to a train leaving for a specific destination where the local pigeon enthusiasts would time them when they were let loose to fly back to their Doocet.The Blantyre pigeon club would do like wise,All good clean fun except for the occasional droppings.
We also had in Logan Street a Church called by its denomination The Evangelical Union or EU Church.It was a large Green colored hut which sat in a field of 2 acres.Before the war this acreage was surrounded by a large iron fence,as I told you previously all of the iron was cut down for the war effort ,so we had the run of this acreage.The church was later taken over by a brass band and us kids always just called it the brass hut for our reference. This acreage of land became a short cut over to the next street Graig Street. I can never recall a service being held in this church and no one ever seemed to be around,and the brass band only played there occasionally so we kids had the run of the surrounding grounds ,which we used frequently for all types of games.For us kids from the bottom of logan street it was a natural playground.Further down the street was the Turner Buildings,this was a row of Tenements 3 story high with the bottom house going all the way back to the back side of the building,the 2nd and 3rd floors were reached by a freestanding staircase at the back ,all toilets were outside on the Landings.The Turner Buildings ran to the bottom of Logan Street and then made a left turn where it became the Central Buildings and ran along the Glasgow Rd until it reached Graig street.
As it made its left turn at that corner of Logan street and Glasgow Road there was another one of the Ironmongers stores I spoke about giving off this unique smell.Logan Street ran from the Glasgow Road South up to Auchinraith Road.At the top of Logan Street was railway line which ran through to High Blantyre and East Kilbride and then out to the West of Scotland.There were a few private bungalows in Auchinraith Road to the left until you met up with an small farm and an open field where cows were grazing in the 1930's,this was right next to The Murrays Raws.I can recall a story that I heard .The story goes that this empty cow pasture was the only area in the whole of Blantyre to have been hit by a unexploded land mine during the war.Most of all the damage to Blantyre was done by shrapnel,(This an other story further on in our travels).
During the air-raids Grannys Catholic lithuanian family and our family spent most nights in an Anderson corrugated steel shelter which my dad and us kids had dug 6ft into the ground and covered with 2ft of earth so we were well covered from the falling shrapnel.I can tell you there were a lot of Rosaries and stations of the cross recited in those nights.Mass hysteria is what I call it now.The louder the guns got the faster and louder the prayers were said.
If I have been giving you the correct directions this would but this area to lie directly North of Jackson and Church Streets.Directly across from the Raws(Elm Street) was The Buggy Buildings again these were the usual tenement type buildings in Blantyre.The Railway line ran behind the Buggy Buildings and across the railway was the Auchinraith pit area that we have spoken about previously.This whole area at the top of Logan Street has been drastically changed by the new Motorway A725 which runs from Uddingston to East Kilbride.If you had turned right at the top of Logan Street again there were a few Bungalows along this stretch of Auchinraith Road,until you came to the Auchinraith School,This of Protestant Denomination.The school ran all the rest of the way down to the top end of Craig Street.
I shall be posting some more pictures of Blantyre in the Gallery for Reference.
I will finish here Margaret,but I will leave you with this poem or ditty from James Cornfield, a boyhood friend and a Logan Street neighbour who has the same feelings of Blantyre and Logan Street as I, but in his own way expresses it much more eloquently in his poetry.
Regards
TDH
" YOU CAN'T TAKE THE MAN,OUT OF THE STREET."
AS LONG AS I LIVE I'LL NEVER FORGET, THE DAY WE WERE GIVEN A HOUSE TO LET,
IN A HOUSING SCHEME ONLY HALF COMPLETE, THE MAGIC PLACE CALLED LOGAN STREET, FROM DIXON'S ROWS ON A HORSE AND DRAY, THE CORNFIELD FLITTIN' MADE ITS WAY, TURNING RIGHT AT THE SHOP OF ANNIE C. SWEET, MADE ITS WAY UP LOGAN STREET.
THE STREET WHEREIN THE HOUSE, IS NAMED AFTER JOHN CLARK FORREST'S SPOUSE,
JANET LOGAN WHO DIED IN HER SLEEP, IS IMMORTALISED BY LOGAN STREET, THE ORIGINAL FAMILIES WHO CAME HERE, ARE IN MEMORY FOREVER CLEAR,
THEIR NAMES KEEP RUNNING THRU' MY BRAIN, LETS SEE IF I CAN REMEMBER THEM .
DOWDELLS, CAVANAGH, THOMSON, McSKIMMING; BURT, KELLY, CHASSELS, DUFFY; McMANUS, McCORKINDALE, BONNAR, CARROL; MURRAY, NEIL, McINALLY, CORRIGAN; STONEY, RAE, WILSON, LYNCH; MEECHAN, PATERSON, BAILEY, MILLAR;
DONNELLY, HAILES, McGUIRE, HOLMES; McSORLEY, TORRANCE, AITKEN, WARD; BROWN, HILL, FULLERTON, RODGERS; MIDDLETON, GillSON, CUNNING, FITZPATRICK; URBANSKI, LENNON, REYNOLDS, McINALLY; MEECHAN, TONNER, SLAVEN, CASSIDY; DUFFY, MARSHALL, McKENZIE, CAIN; ARNOTT, HARTMAN, O'DONNELL, McGUINNESS; STEWART, GILLAN, McKENZIE, BORDON; BAILEY, CHERNOUSKI, WAUGH, CORNFIELD
BOYD, McKEE, COLLINS, ANDERSON; GillSON, McGRAW, STARRS, TAGGART; MARSHALL, SCULLION, RAE, DUFFY; PATON, CLEARY, ALLAN, SMITH; HUTCHESON, McALINDEN, NICOL, MONTAGUE; HooLAHAN, SCOTT, NEVINS, YOUNG.
CHILDREN WITH THESE FAMILY NAMES, WOULD MEET IN THE STREET TO PLAY AT GAMES, LASSIES PLAYED BEDS, ROPES AND BAll, BOYS PLAYED GLESSIES, HEADERS AND FOOTBALL, RUN-SHEEP-RUN AND FREE THE DEN, NURKY-NURKY AND KICK THE CAN,
FILM- STARS- NAMES, A STEP FOR A HINT, HOP-ALL-OVER, AND YOUR KNEES WERE SKINT.
IF PLAY HAD STARTED, AND YOU WANTED A GAME, YOU ALWAYS ASKED FOR A COCK OR A HEN, THE GAMES WE PLAYED ONE AFTER ANOTHER., SEEMED TO LAST FOREVER,
WE PLAYED ALL DAY TILL WE HEARD THE SHOUT, COME IN, COME IN, YOUR TEA IS OUT, BEST OF ALL WAS A GREAT BIG SLIDE, AT THE TOP OF THE STREET WHERE NOBODY STYED.
THEN WE OUT CAME WHEN IT WAS NIGHT, AND SAT BELOW THE LAMPOST'S LIGHT, TELLING STORIES THAT MADE US SCARED, TO GO HOME IN THE DARK, COS WE WERE FEART,
WE All HELD HANDS WITH ONE ANOTHER, MAKING SURE WE WENT HOME TOGETHER, THEN OFF TO BED TO DREAM OUR DREAMS, AND RISE TOMORROW AND PLAY OUR GAMES.
THE STREET WAS BUSY IN THOSE FAR OFF DAYS, PEOPLE FROM All OVER CAME OUR WAY, BLIN' WATTlE, CHEAP JOHNNY, THE OLD CO-OP VAN, ALEX. KERR THE SHILLING-A-WEEK MAN,
WEE DOM THE TALLY THE ICE CREAM MAN, JOHNNY THE DARKlE WITH CASE IN HAND, JENNY THE PACK, THE PROVIDENT MAN, MR. JOHN GRAHAM THE PREACHER MAN .
WULLIE TONER MOOTHPIECE AND CLAPPERS, PLAYING TUNES THAT DROVE US CRACKERS, A BLIN' MAN WHO SANG LIKE A LINNET, THEN SENT HIS PAL ROUND WITH THE BUNNET, STROLLING MINSTRELS FROM ALL THE AlRTS, MEN SELLING FRUIT FROM OPEN CAlRTS, THEY ALL SANG FOR THEIR DAILY BREAD, ANY SONG FOR A PENNY COULD BE HEARD.
EVERY SATURDAY AT THE 'DOOCOT', FOR ENTERTAINMENT YOU COULDNAE WHACK IT, ROBIN OF SHERWOOD WAS ERROL FLYNN, CHIEF CRAZY HORSE WAS ANTHONY QUINN., JOHNNY MACK BROWN SHOT ALL THE BAD YINS, ESPECIALLY IF THEY WERE RED INDIANS, WHATEVER THE PICTURE WE ALL MADE A DIN, A PENNY OR JEELY JAR GOT YOU IN.
I WENT BACK DOWN THERE THE OTHER DAY, nST TO LET MY MEMORY STRAY, TAKING SOME PHOTOS HERE AND THERE, WHEN ALL AT ONCE I WAS AWARE OF SOME WEE BOYS FOLLOWING ME, nST LIKE THE BOYS OF LOGAN STREET DAE, LOOKING AND AT THE SAME TIME SAYING" HAW MISTER WHIT DR YE DAE IN"
CHEEKY WEE FACES LOOKED UP AT ME, AMONG THEM THE BOY THAT ONCE WAS ME, MY PALS AND I WERE STANDING THERE, FACES FROM THE PAST SOME NO LONGERHERE, WE ASKED THE SAME AS THESE WEE BOYS DO, " HAW MISTER WHO UR YOU?"
LONG YEARS MAY PASS, YET STILL REMAIN, NO CHANGE AT ALL, ITS nST THE SAME.
THIS THEN WAS LOGAN STREET, A MAGIC PLACE WHERE WEANS WOULD MEET,
GO UP THE CALDER OR DOWN THE CLYDE, OR SLIDE DOWN THE BING ON YOU BACKSIDE, IT DID'NT MATTER WHAT WE DONE, WE ALWAYS SEEMED TO HAVE SUCH FUN,
CHILDHOOD DAYS WITHIN THE SCHEME, MEMORIES GOLDEN AND EVERGREEN .
JAMES CORNFIELD.2005.
Catch up on your return, thank you for the latest installment another enjoyable read, and thank you to Sam for his addition sad as it was.